UK emissions fall to 1872 level

From Helen Czerski 

The news has been more than a bit grim of late, so hooray for @carbonbrief.org providing some genuine and really meaningful **good** news: the UK's carbon emissions in 2024 were the lowest since 1872, because demand for fossil fuels just keeps decreasing. www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-...

In 1872 the UK population was 31.9 million, today it's 65 million.  So emissions per capita have more than halved since 1872.  

Some emissions have obviously been "outsourced" to China, but only some.  Emissions have fallen 54% since 1990, while GDP has grown 84%.   Carbon Brief points out that:

Consumption-based emissions, including CO2 embedded in imported goods and services, were increasing until 2007, but have since fallen at a similar rate to territorial emissions.

and also that: 

Oil demand [in 2024] fell 1.4% despite increased road traffic, largely due to the rise in the number of EVs. The UK’s 1.4m EVs, 0.8m plug-in hybrids and 76,000 electric vans cut oil-related emissions by at least 5.9MtCO2e, Carbon Brief analysis finds, only slightly offset by around 0.5MtCO2e from higher electricity demand.

Europe and the UK have significantly reduced CO2 emissions.  Unfortunately, China's (and other countries') emissions continue to rise.  China produces 25% of the world's emissions, but its installation of wind and solar in electricity generation, and skyrocketing sales of EVs mean that emissions may peak this year.  Which means that at last, world emissions will start to fall.  This is only the first step, since they need to fall by a lot more than, say, 1% a year to avoid climate catastrophe.  But at least they will be falling, not rising.  In fact, if world emissions were to fall by the UK's 3.6% in 2024, they would halve in 20 years, and fall by 75% by 2060.  Not enough but a hundred times better than the alternative.

This should be every country's target:  to cut emissions by between 3 and 4 % every year.  This will be harder than it sounds: the UK had virtually no economic growth in 2024, which made cutting emissions easier.  Yet the progressive move towards green electricity and green transport means that growth and emissions are being inexorably decoupled.  Economic output can rise without causing fossil fuel use to rise.

It's possible.  Now let's do it.